These ancient adzes were found near the Thames at Battersea Power Station. They're thought to have been used in log boat building.

Mesolithic adzes

A large stone pebble used to knapp and fashion flint into working tools. Late neolithic. From a burial excavated at Stone Castle, Kent.

Hammer stone

These flint tools are hightly polished on one edge and could represent a tool kit. They date from the neolithic period, up to 5000BC .

Neolithic tool kit

The obverse of a copper alloy coin showing a stylised head. It was produced in about 70-50BC and is associated with the Cantii tribe.

Potin: Iron age coin from Kent

This tableware hoard of copper alloy and pewter objects was found in a well in Londinium, probably hidden in a crisis for later retrieval.

Copper alloy tablewares

Wooden door preserved by water from the Walbrook.

Copper alloy oil lamp thought to have been used at a bath house and found at Fenchurch Street in the City of London

Bath house oil lamp

This bottle was a grave good found on a site in Trinity Square, Southwark, London. It's commonly associated with the Roman deity Mercury.

'Mercury' flask after the deity, Mercury.

2nd century Roman gem stone with a legionary eagle and standards. It's less than 20mm long.

Intaglio featuring the Eagle of Rome with two standards.

I showed this photograph to a horticulturalist from Boston, Lincolnshire. This type of tool has changed little to this day. A design classic

Horticultural rake

This small leather shoe was found in waterlogged deposits near the ancient course of the river Walbrook in the City of London.

A child's shoe

The stones seen here are emerald and garnet linked by a gold chain. It was found in the Roman mausoleum of a young woman in Kent.

Gold necklace fragment

The hen is inlaid with enamelling and is though to have had some accompanying chicks attached.

Copper alloy hen brooch

Gold and variscite necklace, 3rd Century found in association with a Roman mausoleum near Gillingham, Kent.

Necklace fragment

This Roman period burial was truncated by a service trench in the 20th Century. It was discovered in Southwark, London.

Truncated burial

Anglo Saxon brooch

Anglo-Saxon glass beads

Anglo-Saxon pottery

The creature depicted on this tile is thought to represent a whale.

Glazed tile

These tiles are of a type found at Westminster Abbey.

Penn tile

Bowling ball found at the site of the Tudor palace in Brandon House, Southwark, London.

Tudor bowling cheese from Brandon House

This bowl was found on the floor of the cellar of a brick building that was destroyed in the Great fire of London of 1666.

Wooden bowl from Newgate Prison

This lead bulla was part of the seal of the scroll or bull, issued by pope Innocent III who nullified the Magna Carta in 1215

Papal bulla of Innocent III, from Borough High Street.

This was an architectural feature once adorning the Tudor palace, Brandon House.

Terracotta lion from Brandon House

Lead cloth seal with George III

Various 18th Century pottery sherds

Pigment in an oyster shell from the site of Bermondsey Abbey